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The finding is reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, published by the American Psychological Association.

Twenty-five men and 32 women briefly viewed a black-and-white photo of a man in a polo shirt, surrounded by a red or white background.

Using a nine-point scale, they answered three questions: “How attractive do you think this person is?” “How pleasant is this person to look at?” and “If I were to meet the person in this picture face to face, I would think he is attractive.”

Women who looked at a man surrounded by red or white rated the man surrounded by red a little over one point higher on a nine-point scale of attractiveness, a statistically significant bump.

It had no effect on men.

Another experiment featured a man in a colour photo, dressed in either a red or a green shirt.

A pool of 55 women rated the man in red as significantly more attractive – on average, nearly one point higher on the same nine-point scale.

They also thought he was more desirable, according to a second, five-item measure that asked viewers to rate the likelihood that they’d want to have sex with him.

Although red means different things in different cultures, the finding of women (but not men) drawn to men in red was consistent across countries.

Women in a follow-up study perceived men wearing red T-shirts to be significantly more likely to be high in status than men wearing blue T-shirts, in addition to the men in red seeming more generally and sexually attractive.